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Thursday, August 4, 2016

WILDFIRE NEARS HANFORD NUCLEAR SITE, WASHINGTON STATE

WILDFIRE NEAR WHAT HAS BEEN CALLED "THE MOST RADIOACTIVE SITE ON EARTH", HANFORD NUCLEAR FACILITY.

The fire that began on the Yakima Training Center Saturday night and
burned into Benton and Grant Counties over the weekend has ballooned to over 177,000 acres and is 10% contained, according to fire crews.

Smoke and charred hills surround most of the town. About 250 homes are in
jeopardy in the current fire footprint. About 400 firefighters, three
helicopters and 34 engines are fighting it.

Crews set a backfire Sunday night on Rattlesnake Mountain to keep the
Range 12 fire from burning contaminated areas of the Hanford Nuclear
Reservation, where plutonium was manufactured for World War II.

Firefighters on Monday were building a fire line on the eastern flank
of the blaze, along Highway 240, to keep the fire from nearing the
contaminated nuclear site.Near
the roadway, firefighters were using controlled burns, or “turning the
grass into black,” as Rishe put it, to choke the fire of fuel and stop
its spread.AUGUST 3, 2016Officials from the Hanford nuclear reservation and Energy Northwest have
been meeting with fire managers in southeast Washington state Tuesday.
The nearby Range 12 Fire has grown ...and high
winds are predicted this evening.

Helicopters won't be able to fly if gusts reach 20-30 miles per hour as predicted.

Fire
managers said they are confident in their dozer and hand line around
the fire’s perimeter -- but the high winds will test crews putting out
hot spots.

Fire
crews from Benton County, Walla Walla County, and even the Department
of Fish and Wildlife came to help to fight the blaze. They were trying
to protect the Hanford site. And so far, the Hanford nuclear site has
been protected.But, all non-essential Hanford employees were
ordered to leave the site until further notice. Fires have become common in the area SIZE OF FIRE WAS UNDERESTIMATED

BECAUSE THE SHEER VOLUME OF RADIOACTIVE MATERIAL IN AND AROUND HANFORD'S AGED SITE CANNOT BE COUNTED, CAN'T EVEN BE IMAGINED.

A FIRE THAT SWEPT INTO THAT 'FACILITY' WOULD RELEASE MORE RADIATION INTO THE ATMOSPHERE THAN FUKUSHIMA AND CHERNOBYL COMBINEDJUST SITTING THERE, WITHOUT NEARBY FIRES, THE ENVIRONMENTAL THREAT IS OFF THE CHARTS.

It
includes dangers to public health, dangers to the food supply, and
dangers to future generations from long-lived radionuclides, including
some of the most toxic material in the world.

It is not Fukushima, it is
Hanford.

While radiation from the Fukushima nuclear meltdowns is reaching the
West Coast, carried across the ocean from Japan, the radiation from
Hanford is already there, has been there for 70 years, and is in serious
risk of catastrophe that could dwarf the effects of Fukushima on
Japan.

USING AMERICAN CITIZENS AS GUINEA PIGS, KNOWING MANY WOULD DIE....The Green Run
In December 1949 the United States deliberately released an immense
amount of radiation into populated areas at the Hanford Site during the
notorious Green Run. It was the largest intentional release of radiation conducted by the U.S. government.

[THERE WAS A SECOND 'GREEN RUN' THAT FEW ARE AWARE OF.]The resulting radiation dispersed throughout a vast area stretching
across much of Washington State and into Southern Oregon.

Concentrations
were found in valleys and lowlands as the radiation distributed
irregularly.

Internalizing iodine-131 is a direct cause of thyroid
cancer.

THE MAP BELOW SHOWS THE SPREAD OF THE PLUME.

The Tank Farms

Few things pose as great a threat to public health at Hanford than the Tank Farms.

The Tank Farms are 177 single and double shelled waste storage tanks
sited at two different locations on the Hanford complex.

In the early
days at Hanford, when plutonium for nuclear weapons was separated from
the spent nuclear fuel, the leftover uranium from the process was stored
in these tanks. Over the years a wide range of the highest level
radioactive and chemical wastes were dumped into these tanks. According
to the State of Washington
the 177 tanks hold 53 million gallons of the highest level radioactive
waste existing in the United States.

67 of the single shelled tanks have
leaked over 1 million gallons of this highly radioactive waste which is
migrating through the soil and groundwater into the Columbia River.

DOES THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT CARE HOW MANY LIVES HANFORD'S CRUMBLING TANKS AND LEAKS WILL CAUSE?

OBVIOUSLY NOT!BEING VERY BLUNT, THE FEDS WOULD RATHER SEE HUMAN LIVES JEOPARDIZED FOREVER THAN SPEND THE BILLIONS TO CLEAN UP HANFORD....BESIDES, THERE IS NO CLEANING UP HANFORD....IT JUST CAN'T BE DONE, EVER.

Radioactive and chemical contamination has not and will not stay inside Hanford's boundaries.

Contamination will remain for hundreds of thousands of years beyond any memory of a place called Hanford.

What are the present threats?

1) Water ContaminationAt least one third of
Hanford's 177 huge high-level nuclear waste tanks, many as big as the
capitol dome in Olympia, have leaked. In some areas technology from the
1950s is still being used to detect leaks, probably underestimating the
extent of contamination.

Almost all of the single-shell tanks are well
beyond their design life, so more leaks are likely. Radioactive
contaminants have reached the groundwater 200 feet below the surface and
are on their way or have already reached the Columbia River.
In the last free-flowing US stretch of the Columbia flowing through
Hanford, now the Hanford Reach National Monument, 70% of the fall
chinook spawn each year.

Over 300 miles of the Columbia River downstream
from Hanford are threatened by the leaking tanks.

The WA Department of
Ecology notes that "aside from the environmental damage and health risk,
the perception of the river being contaminated could devastate the
market for northwest agricultural products."1

2) Atmospheric ContaminationNewspaper headlines in 1999, "Nuclear Blob Grows at Hanford,2
described a bulge in the radioactive crust on one of the huge waste
tanks caused by a buildup of dangerously explosive hydrogen.

While this
threat was resolved, it is one of a variety of safety issues that have
plagued Hanford tanks. These include flammable gasses, nuclear
materials, and explosive chemicals.

In 1957 in Siberia a high-level
waste tank exploded, spreading a radioactive plume of 20 million curies
180 miles long, giving people estimated doses of .7 to 80 REM, and
necessitating the relocation of well over 10,000 people.3Collapsing tank domes or tank explosions that could spread radioactivity far beyond Hanford remain a genuine threat.

Fires at Hanford pose another real danger. In August 1984 and July
2000 raging sagebrush fires burned three-fifths of the Hanford area.

The
July 2000 fire burned three radioactive waste sites and stopped just
short of some major waste sites.4

Afterwards plutonium was detected in nearby communities. Earthquakes are an additional concern. Just a quarter mile from the
Columbia River, two large swimming pool-like structures, the K-Basins,
hold 80% of the DOE's stockpile of spent fuel rods.

These storage basins
have leaked in the past. If earthquakes cracked these structures,
draining off the cooling water, the spent rods could spontaneously
ignite, seriously polluting the atmosphere.

Each year
numerous workers have been exposed to “vapors” and have become sick or
lost consciousness and required hospitalization.

Many have suffered
ongoing health problems as a result of these exposures. In 2014 over 40
workers suffered from such exposures including a two-week period in late
March that saw 26 workers
hospitalized.

According to KGW news in Portland, a 1997 study conducted
by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory warned that workers
exposed to vapors from specific tanks would have significantly increase
risk of cancers and other serious diseases, but the conclusions of this report “were never made public, shared with Hanford workers or members of the federally chartered Hanford Advisory Board.”

On 29 September 1957 a [SINGLE] tank containing waste similar to the waste in the
Hanford Tank Farms exploded at the Mayak plutonium production site in
the former Soviet Union, known as the Kyshtym Disaster.

The cooling system for one of the tanks at the Mayak site failed and
the temperature inside the tank rose eventually causing a chemical
explosion that sent a radioactive cloud for over 350 km downwind and
heavily contaminated an area near the plant with catastrophic levels of
cesium-137 and strontium-90.

This was one of the worst radiological
disasters in human history at the time, and remained so, along with the
fire three weeks later inside a nuclear reactor core at the Windscale
facility (now called Sellafield) in Cumbria in the United Kingdom,
until the Chernobyl meltdown and explosion in 1987.

The Kyshtym
Disaster, which a Soviet study concluded resulted directly in 8,000
deaths (not to mention illnesses) was the consequence of an explosion in
ONE tank.

At Hanford there are currently 177 such tanks, each
containing similar disastrous potential, and located beside one another.

Contaminations and Dangers

The EPA has identified between 1,500-1,200 specific sites
on the Hanford grounds where toxic or radioactive chemicals have been
dumped.

The ambiguity of that number speaks volumes about the lack of
record keeping and functional data for addressing these problems.

Furthermore, the impacts from Hanford are not only what may happen, but what has already happened.

GENERATIONS OF CANCER VICTIMS, CEMETERIES FULL OF THE DEAD...

Hanford downwinders
have suffered generations of cancers and other diseases across a wide
area of Eastern Washington and beyond. There is a legacy of death and
illness that spans generations downwind from Hanford, and the source of
those diseases percolates away in the tanks and waste sites that sit
along the Columbia River, spreading deeper into the surrounding
ecosystem. The radiation from Fukushima may slowly seep across the vast
Pacific, while at Hanford we have the threat of a radiological explosion
or terrorist act that could release volumes more radiation than was
released by Fukushima Stand up for Hanford whistleblowers.

Demand transparency on waste management practices and plans at Hanford.

Stand up for the health of Hanford workers who are being exposed to
dangerous vapors in their workplace.

And demand support and compensation
for the downwind families and workers whose health and wellbeing has
been devastated by the most radioactive site in the United States."

DOES ANYONE STILL THINK WE NEED NUCLEAR ENERGY?IF SO, WILL YOU TRADE PLACES WITH THOSE WHO WORK IN OR LIVE NEAR HANFORD?WOULD YOU?